


Untangled

by jazzypizzaz



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Bonding, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Hair, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21922144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzypizzaz/pseuds/jazzypizzaz
Summary: Michael and Tilly share a quiet moment together, bonding over hair, mothers, identity, and being far from home.
Relationships: Michael Burnham & Sylvia Tilly, Michael Burnham/Sylvia Tilly
Comments: 9
Kudos: 38
Collections: Star Trek Secret Santa 2019





	Untangled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monsterfisken](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=monsterfisken).



> Takes place after Season 2, without knowing anything about Season 3 except that they are centuries in the future and Michael's hair in that one trailer.

Tilly lets out a long, low groan of pure bliss.

This cathartic exhalation reverberates through Michael’s legs, from where Tilly’s head lays on her lap. Michael clears her throat, ignoring the heat that rises in her cheeks.

“Oh! Gosh. Oh sorry, it feels _so good_ ,” Tilly’s eyes flutter open in apology. Michael regrets awakening Tilly’s insecurity from beneath that brief contentment. It’s been a rough couple of months scrambling to survive, and they ought to cherish what peace comes. “Your fingers are so nimble, or I mean that’s also a weird thing to say right? It’s - I like your hands, or I mean, your touch is soothing. Like I’m a baby and your hands are my mother singing my head a lullaby -- or, well not _my_ mother. My mother could never be mistaken for soothing, but maybe like your -- oh sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up mothers. Shit shit, Michael --”

“Shh, shh. Hush now baby Sylvia.” Michael’s lips twitch in amusement, cutting off Tilly’s nervous babbling.

Finding and losing her real mother, meeting and then losing Philippa, being cared for by Amanda and now losing her forever as well with the Discovery flung into the unknown distant future -- Michael isn’t lacking for unresolved feelings on mother figures, but right now, like so many moments in the past two months, is not the time to try to unpack any of that.

Michael gently presses Tilly back to lying down. She wants to enjoy this quiet moment together.

Tilly makes a petulant face, but it’s just for show. She relaxes back into Michael’s lap. “Only my mother calls me Sylvia, you know that.”

Michael resumes combing her fingers through Tilly’s damp hair, the long strands spiraling out into a rippling red prairie across the bed. She gently works through a snarl, uncovering a hooked thorn that ensnared itself.

“Baby Tilly, then. Out to play in an alien swamp and now all full of brambles. Tsk, tsk,” Michael pretends to admonish her.

They had gone out together on an away mission, searching for signs of civilization on a backwater planet, and had promptly gotten lost together in the dense wilderness. After a few mishaps and far too much bushwhacking through thorny vines and tangled groves, they found their way back. Freshly showered and safe back on the ship, Tilly asked for help with her hair.

Tilly giggles. “You were out there with me too. It’s just that you had the foresight of manageable hair.”

Michael snorts and rolls her eyes. “My hair is more tightly curled than yours, you know that.”

“Sure, but it’s short. Professional. Starfleet dress code recommends updos for long hair, but that's not exactly helpful when my only hair tie breaks on an away mission.”

“You could always cut it off. People are allowed more than one hairstyle in their life, you know,” Michael teases.

“I’ve had long hair so long I don’t know if I’d recognize myself without it. And my mother…” Tilly shudders. “She would have a _fit_. I can’t even imagine the ruckus she’d make… It’s rebellion enough that I don’t straighten it like she does hers, like it’s another symbol of how _unwieldy_ I am. A chaotic rat’s nest of a daughter. How I’ll never be the polished, restrained diplomat like she is.” Tilly pauses. “Like she _was_. I keep forgetting how much we left behind. I guess she’d never know.”

“You didn’t have to follow me --” Michael says softly, not for the first time, feeling the centuries of gap between them and their old life.

“Don’t start that again. We’re here with you now, and I don't regret it for a second,” Tilly says firmly. “Certainly not because of hair troubles.”

Michael laughs. She considers, then recites:

_“Good morning wind swaying the apricot tree_

_Good morning reborn one set free_

_Now I wonder at a pin’s round head_

_That some weigh out as a lifetime_

_Forth and back from my black black hair I cut myself free._

[ Source ]

“It’s by an ancient Earth poet, Turkish I believe, a poem about womenhood and freedom. Twentieth century.”

“Freedom, hmmm… Are we freed from our pasts, way out here? Or more tied to it now than ever?” Tilly hums a contented sigh, the look of peace returned to her face with the poetry. “Your voice changes when you recite stuff like that, knowledge with depth. Like it’s the truth of the universe moving through you.”

“Like when you talk about math,” Michael says fondly.

“Math is poetry the universe writes.” Tilly, her eyes still closed, smiles, pleased. Michael continues combing through her hair. They share the quiet together.

“I didn’t always have short hair. As a kid...” Michael eventually breaks the silence. Tilly stays conspicuously quiet, and Michael is grateful. The peaceful moment makes her feel safe right now to dip her toe a little into the tumultuous tides of the past. Tilly’s hair doesn’t seem to have any remaining snags in it, finally, but Michael reaches over to comb through it absent-mindedly anyway. “As a kid, as you might imagine, my hair was big, proud. Bounced when I walked. I used to love it, or at least -- I loved that it meant spending time with my mother. She would help me pick through it, style it… Of course I did used to beg to use relaxers so it would look more like hers, but I’m glad she always talked me out of it. Convinced me I was beautiful as I was.”

 _Just like_ you _are_ , _however ‘manageable’ you think you aren’t_ , Michael thinks, about Tilly, but doesn’t say aloud.

 _How could someone as incredible as you ever doubt yourself_ , Tilly also thinks and also doesn’t say.

“But the poem…” Tilly quirks her head slightly to try to look up at Michael’s face, her eyes crinkled with slight confusion. “Is that what it was like for you to cut your hair short? Freedom and rebirth?”

“Oh, no.” Michael’s lips crease into a thin line. “No not really. I wanted to fit in, simple as that. Practical, efficient, logical.”

“Vulcan,” Tilly acknowledges. She sits up, cross-legged next to Michael on the bed, carefully gathering her hair to cascade over one shoulder.

Michael nods. “What I wanted was to be reborn to be like everyone else at school, the freedom that comes from not being noticed or set apart for what I couldn't change about myself, like being human. Not that it helped.”

“But Amanda…?”

“Would defend whatever I wanted. She asked if I actually wanted to cut my hair and restyle it like my classmates’, like everyone else on Vulcan, if I was _sure_ so many times. ‘It might take a long time to grow back honey,’ she said, as if I didn’t know that better than she did.” Michael frowns at the memory. “In prison I stopped caring at all. Never thought I’d find somewhere to belong again anyway, after that.”

“But you do now. You belong with us. Maybe... “ Tilly twists her lip, wary of somehow saying the wrong thing. It’s always so easy for her to do, as generous as Michael is. “Maybe you could grow it out again?”

Michael’s frown deepens, although it might be just that that hadn’t occurred to her before. “It would take a long time.”

“Um! I mean! If you want to?” Tilly hastily backtracks. “I’d love to see how you look, or uhh I _always_ like how you look, you’re seriously like the prettiest woman I’ve ever -- but you’re more than your appearance of course. ‘The most beautiful thing is a beautiful mind,’ and oh boy that brain of yours, I’ve never met _anyone_ like you, never felt like this about uhh about anyone. I… I'm getting off topic. God, I sound like the girls at boarding school, mooning about their crushes. Um. Forget I said anything.”

“You think I’m -- pretty?” Michael sounds out the word as if it’s one she’d never thought about before.

Tilly’s face is bright red now as she nods sheepishly. It seems like such a limited, childish thing to say, hearing it repeated back. "And other adjectives too."

“You think I’m pretty.” A big smile tugs at Michael’s mouth, refusing to be restrained. Tilly relaxes. “Maybe I will grow it out then. For you.”

“Yeah?” Tilly grins. She places her hand over Michael’s. Michael squeezes back.

“We’re going to be here a while aren’t we? Forever. New world, new look -- seems to be the trend in my life. Hell maybe I’ll try braids, that would be new.”

“Promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“That even though you’ve already washed and styled our misadventure away, you’ll let me comb through your hair right now anyway? With my hands, like you did for me? It was very comforting.”

Michael smiles. “We'll help untangle each other.”

**Author's Note:**

> I welcome constructive criticism, especially about hair :)


End file.
